Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Getting Old Sucks

Nate threw out his back on the 24th after fixing fences and putting up a wood border in the garage to keep the mice out.  It really sucks because he doesn't know exactly what he did to hurt himself.  He doesn't recall anything getting overly painful while working, so pinpointing how to prevent it in the future is pretty vague.

He just woke up and walked to the bathroom and the pain caused him to bend sideways in a crooked position and he couldn't stand up straight.  I had to help him put on his shoes and when I looked up there were tears rolling down his cheeks. A feeling of panic ran up my spine. What is happening to my poor husband?

I've never known Nate to cry from physical pain.   I felt so awful, racking my brain what to do to make him comfortable, heat, pain meds, ibuprofen, positioning, but nothing worked. (We didn't try ice and I should have known to use the R.I.C.E. method: Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation. I thought about that later.  He wasn't too excited about icing it).


This only hit home how much we need to get into and keep ourselves in shape.  Nate's injury made me realize how much we really need my Pilates machines.  I am anxiously awaiting for my Pilates lessons in March. 

Earl and Veloy got back from Utah after being gone from about April or May of this year.  Their coming back kind of put a rush on cleaning and fixing things and I know Nate felt a bit of a push to get things done in a hurry.  Earl called one day in advance to let us know they were returning. I don't know if this had something to do with Nate's injury.  

We all need physical therapy. Veloy had surgery on her hip and her knee. The doctors said she would have been bed-bound in one month if she didn't have surgery on her hip.  I'm glad she did it because she is moving with less pain now than she did before she left.  The reformer will help rehabilitate her from surgery and hopefully keep Nate from surgery. 

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Speak Up

Do you ever call work at 3:30 a.m. to let them know that the chest tube clamps left in the med room need cleaning before they can be put back?

Or call your 21 year old at 1:45 a.m. to ask where she is and is she safe enough to drive home?

Do you go home from work at night in such a frazzle that you are up until 3:00 in the morning wondering how you could have done better in the day, or if you handled someone at work right, or if you missed something in your charting?

WELL I DO!  I'm not bragging!  I hate that I sit up and fret about the day, continually telling myself to stop reliving it... live in THE NOW......and that stewing about it can't change what's already happened in the the day.  

Still, I fret.

I'm bothered by this stupid obnoxious hairy beast of a woman from work.   

We'll call her "Joane".   

Joane is a character that Carol Burnette would have a hay-day imitating.  She is about five foot seven, has a large ponchy belly and saggy boobs, wears floods.  Her shoulder length hair is brown, naturally curly and often disheveled.  She wears thick glasses and sometimes goes crossed eyed when she talks to you to avoid eye contact.  She brags about her multiple affairs with her old boyfriend, speaks louder than anyone else at the nursing station, and physically pulls doctors aside to tell them her dirty jokes. She's overweight and ugly and I'm getting to like her less and less as time goes on.
  

Well, today "Joane" publicly insulted our unit secretary, boldly telling her that she hates the way she laughs......... that she finds it obnoxious and doesn't find anything she laughs at funny!  And that she just doesn't care for it a bit!   

Can you believe the cajones on this woman?  You'd have to know Joane.  She has a very dry sense of humor and has no filters in her communication.  But I was still dumbfounded! 

I really wanted to throw in some snide remark about how foul, disgusting, and ugly I find her.  I wanted so bad to give it to her! She's one nurse who thinks it's all about her.   She monopolizes the aides, is in constant complaint that she is overworked, refuses or rebels when it comes time to taking another patient, and makes sure she reads the newspaper and gets her breakfast every morning regardless.....   She thinks she is beyond reprimand, although I've seen her hauled off  into the managers office, more than once for her attitude and rebellion!  Oh, and did I say I find her rude, loud, pushy and overbearing?  Well, that's "Joane"!


I wasn't sure how to respond to this rude comment. Here I am charge nurse, sitting right next to "Marg" (we'll call her Marg), wondering just how or if I should reply to such an awful comment.  It was totally out of the blue and unfounded.  I love our  unit secretary.  Largely because of her laugh and her bubbly personality and the way she is always singing.  Not to mention that she is a stellar person and has something that Joane doesn't............A WORK ETHIC!!! 

That blow went right to my heart!  


Marg has been a unit secretary for ump-teen years and really knows her job better than anyone.


Marg stood up for herself.  She replied....Well you talk much too loudly at the nursing station and you need to tone it down or take it somewhere else!  

I was so proud she stood up to her, but I felt I needed to say something!

Did I stand up to Joane in defense of our beloved secretary?  Yes!  Just not in the way I invisioned it.  You know how you go home and think of a hundred ways you could have handled the situation if you had your wits about you?  But I was reminded of the movie "You've Got Mail", when Meg Ryan's character finally gets her digs in and off the top of her head lets Tom Hanks character have it.  Out of her mouth right as she was thinking it, NO FILTERS!  Then her own remark made her feel awful and out of character!  

That movie is what I kept thinking of as I held my tongue and stayed quiet.  I'd no sooner get my two bits in and someone would look at me like have the problem. Then my defense would be nullified and I'd stand there upset at myself and go home to stew about that response.


So I simply said........"I love her laugh!  She makes me happy and keeps me upbeat all day!  I think she's great!"

Stew, stew, stew............  Should I have put Joane in her place?  Should I have said what I really wanted to? I was finally given the perfect opportunity.  A rare moment when Joane was so focused on her own opinion that I could have just said how rude I thought she was, and that I couldn't believe she would say something like that at all! Especially as she lacks grace and dignity in her own personality.

I just stuck to the K.I.S.S. principle..............
Keep
It
Simple
Stupid


 I hope some day someone is able to put "Joane" in her place and make her shut her yap!


Sunday, October 19, 2008

My Favorite Season

FALL IS HERE!




                                                                                                          Gardiner Village is one of my favorite places to visit in the fall. 
Witches night out was just becoming a tradition at Halloween time for
 my sis and I.   Then I moved!









I Love......




....The smell of fall....





....Autumn colors of rust, brown and orange....



....Sweater weather..... 





....Halloween....















I'VE BEEN A WITCH FOR YEARS! (Just ask my kids haha).

No!  My costume has been a witch forever.  I get excited at the store when I see green makeup, black fingernail polish and tall pointy hats!  

Here in Larkspur we don't even get trick-or-treaters which SUCKS major!  Well, I'm sure some adults would say......Whoa, just enjoy it!  But, I like to see the kids reaction when I'd open the door.  

Monday, October 6, 2008

Our Twilight Pix

Heather, Aubrey and I were on the speaker phone the other night discussing who we would have chosen, if given the job of casting the parts for the upcoming movie Twilight. Each of us has read the first book and so feel we are absolutely qualified to make a casting decision.

All of us thought that the girl chosen to play the role of Bella was a good choice according to what she looks like. I personally haven't seen her act, but she definitely looks the part of a beautiful tomboy.


Kristen Stewart


We decided that some of actors chosen didn't exactly fit who we pictured.  The actors chosen to play the parts for Carlisle, Esme and Edward could be, in our most superbilous opinions, OTHER ACTORS. So we racked our brains to come up with actors we thought would be better suited for the parts.

    ---------------------------------------

Carlisle
The guy cast for the part of Carlisle, Peter Facinelli, doesn't quite fit the picture we have in our heads as to what Carlisle would look like. Carlisle is an experienced medical doctor working in the town hospital, and everybody respects his judgement and abilities as town doc. He has a life long love interest (don't exactly know if they are married?) and has poses as having five adopted teenage kids, several of which go to the same high school.  The guy cast for the part doesn't fit the picture we had for him.  He may meet the books age requirements, but we all felt that he wouldn't be believable and would appear too young and inexperienced as father of many teenagers and long time doctor.



Peter Facinelli


Christian Bale would have been a good choice for the part of Carlisle in our opinion.  He is very good looking, could pass as the town doctor who has loads of medical experience and yet appears old enough to have adopted five teenage kids and could pass the age requirement of the book.  


Christian has the appearance of strength, confidence, experience and is absolutely gorgeous.









I kind of pictured Carlisle to have light colored hair, kind of grayish.  I know that doesn't go along with the author based on the age Carlisle was when he became a vampire, but that's just how I saw him in my mind.  After all, this is a vampire who's been around 300 plus years!!! I pictured his hair slicked back like both these models. Carlisle would appear very intelligent, calm, able to make smart medical decisions in a hurry, and have the appearance of strength and stature. 
                        
We were all in agreement that Carlisle should have his hair kind of slicked back like this Prada model.  This guy is seriously gorgeous, and has an heir about him of confidence, elegance, experience, knowledge and strength. This guy could pass as a vampire, yes?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
       
Edward





Aubrey was dead on when she found this picture online as a possible Edward.  We were all in agreement that Edward would have smoldering looks, sharp features, loose hair, clean complexion and the eyes of an animal, hungry but patient.   I would seriously follow this guy around and never be able to think of anyone else if  I was Bella and this Gucci model were Edward.  He is definitely hot enough to play the part.  Thumbs up from all three of us.

                            -------------------------------------------------------------------


Esme

Heather and I picked Amy Brennegan to play the part of Esme.  She's gorgeous, young enough to be Carlisle's wife, but doesn't look like she just got out of high school herself.  She would have been a better choice for Esme.


The girl cast for the part in the movie is Elizabeth Reaser and she doesn't fit the role of Esme because she is as old as the kids she's supposed to be mother to.  She doesn't have the feel of an experienced mother of five to any one of us.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 

So that's all we have to say about our choice of players for now!

Sunday, October 5, 2008

READY, SET, GO!!!






The black and white flag is down, and the race is on!




Report is over, time to check each patients labs, blood pressures............my phone is going off ALREADY!




This is Tami, can I help you? You're IV is beeping? I'll be right there! Didn't get to check tele yet.



Oh, no, this IV is leaking. Looks like we need to change it. Dang phone... This is Tami can I help you? Ok, I'll get my aide to help you to the toilet. Go get supplies for IV restart.





Success! This IV should last a couple days. What, you need pain meds now? O.k. Let me get them with the rest of your morning meds.



Phone rings.... You need help to the bathroom? (didn't they just call 4 minutes ago... I called my aide, did she not help my patient to the potty?). I'll be right with you.



I still need to help the other patient to the bathroom. That's two that need toileting. I still need to check my tele strips. I still need to get all my a.m. meds! It's nearly 8:30.



Phone rings.... Can you... please...into....room......



What? I couldn't even understand what they just said, but it didn't sound like the patient in that room. I better go see what he needs, he's the heart surgery patient and may need my help. Oh, hi Dr Kim....yes, I can stop the amiodarone drip and pull out his IV, then restart it! (RIGHT! He has absolutely NO veins and needs another stick. I still haven't seen my strips! Still need to go get everyones meds and it's almost 9:00 o'clock and I STILL NEED COFFEE!!!).







Man, I gotta go before my bladder bursts, but I've GOT to get meds and start another I.V. Better check orders! Oh, it looks like 104's going home. That means I get to take out the IV I just PUT IN! Wonderful. Get my drugs out for four patients and go give 104 pain meds. Stop at tele quickly to check rhythms! Ok, my heart patient is in normal sinus rhythm, it will be ok to take him off the amiodarone.



Deliver meds to each patient, get the discharge ready to go home and take both IV's out (one of which I JUST started)! He's a cute kid, hope he doesn't have a lot of pain when he goes home.



Time to walk my patient. I'm getting hungry myself! Wonder if I'll get a chance to eat some toast? I've got to get some coffee!



..............And on and on and on the day goes. No stopping, always moving.



There have been a couple twelve hour days in my 13 year career that I've only gone to the bathroom ONCE or not at all because I'm so busy. I come home exhausted most of the time or so keyed up I can't sleep.



It's really hard to see people with so many physical ailments. I remember wondering in nursing school how it would be possible to avoid getting attached or all caught up in the heart ache of illness with my patients and I've since learned that there is absolutely no way to avoid it. And I'm not sure I'd consider myself human or humane if I did!



What the patients and their family members go through with some of the devastating and life threatening issues I see every day makes me very grateful for my health and the health of my own family.



My 86 year old patient recently had lung surgery to remove a mass. She originally went to the doctor for a hydrocortisone shot for pain in her left shoulder. The doctor got an x-ray and found a nodule in her lung. Later a CT scan showed a mass and this patient ended up having a thoracotomy with a partial lobectomy and mass removal at 86 years old. It was cancer. She was a darling woman with a thick German accent. Never cried out in pain, only winced and asked if she could have some pain meds. She needed help up to the bathroom, not only because it hurt to move,, but for crying out loud, SHE'S EIGHTY SIX YEARS OLD!!!! Her daughter was a nervous nelly (more difficult to deal with than my patient). This cute little patient went home today. I hope she is able to heal..... I hope the cancer doesn't return..... I hope her family is grateful she is still here on this earth.



Another of my patients today was a 19 year old boy with Crohn's disease. Crohn's is one mean and painful disease! I saw a few cases when I worked in endoscopy and their colons look like a bomb went off inside or they ate WAY TOO MANY JALAPENOS, all raw, ulcerated and bloody (not table talk but what do you expect, I'm a nurse!) Many patients face the possibility of partial or complete colon removal. I can't imagine how painful this disease is and it's an autoimmune thing so it has nothing to do with anything the patient has done to themselves like eating poorly or using drugs or something like that. This kid wasn't the average 19 year old. He was up on current events, had watched the presidential and VP debates, and was watching CNN! Yeah, he played video games and watched movies but I don't think my 19 year old would spend the time to watching the debates (do we still call them video games even if they are DVD's?). He said he was attending college to become... what else.... a doctor... of all things. I told him he could specialize in GI, he already has plenty of personal experience.!!





Like I said, I know this isn't dinner conversation, but I'm a nurse so much of my life entails something that has an element of being gross, disgusting or depressing. I've even turned Heather totally white before, telling her about my patients ulcerated and necrotic foot. I seriously thought she was going to pass out as she went all pale and pasty. I had to walk her to the sink and put a cool cloth on her the back of her neck to keep her from falling to the floor. Poor girl. I guess I'm just used to that kind of stuff.



My time in endoscopy gave me so many funny stories, I don't think if I'd heard them from someone else I would have believed them. People do the stupidest things sometimes, it amazes me what excuses they give actually expecting we health professionals to believe them. Like the kid who came into the hospital with a shampoo bottle up his butt and said he fell down on it in the shower and couldn't get it out. Yeah we heard a few bar of soap stories too. That bar of soap just got sucked up in there. :) It was an ass-ident!(ha ha)



One girl came in with exacto knife blades in her colon! How did they get in there? Her story suggested someone at the bar the night before, "spiked her drink". We saw the blades on x-ray. There were two of them. I was really in awe as I watched the skill of our doctor, as he painstakingly and carefully removed each blade from her colon. He had to attach to the blade and then manipulate the scope, while keeping a hold of the blade and holding onto the buttons on the scope to allow air to inflate the colon so he could see the that she was not cut as he slowly backed the scope out. The blade never nicked or touched the sides of her colon at all. (He must have played the game Operation a lot as a kid!). He was able to remove both blades without so much as a scratch to her colon. I think back on this story and really miss the relationships I developed with the docs in endo-land. Doctor Mike was one of my favorites. He is a brilliant and fun loving man and I miss him and his German accent. His skill amazes me still.



Once we had this guy who came to the hospital fully dressed in a suit and tie and had already sat through an entire hour long meeting at work. His wife came with him to drive him home after his "scope" because he would have been drugged for the procedure. He was having a colonoscopy. Prior to his procedure he specifically instructed us to keep the details of his "scope" from his wife as the truth of why he was having it would be totally humiliating to him and he would rather she not know.



This man had an entire zucchini up his butt!



Can you believe that? He couldn't get it out himself so he had to come to the endo lab to have it removed! He had been unable to remove it the night before, so he went all night AND sat through his entire meeting at work before coming to have the noxious vegetable taken out of his rectum!! An entire zucchini! Oh, I could have died! The embarrassment of it all. His wife was just under the impression her spouse was there for a routine, age based colonoscopy!

What a world, what a world!



                                                         (Daikon Radish)


Our nurse manager made a comment that if the guy was going to put something up his butt, he "oughta at least put a string on it so he can pull it back out"!



My white elephant gift that year for the Endo Christmas party included: a banana, a zucchini, a daikon radish, and a carrot, all neatly wrapped in Christmas paper, each one included a handy- dandy loop of oxygen tubing tied in the end it for "easy removal". Guess who got the gift? The nurse manager! What a fluke of luck! No kidding, we put all put our gifts in the middle of the room and played a game, can't recall the name of the game, but you get a gift, unwrap it and then other people get a chance to take your gift! My boss, the one who said it would be smart to have the ties on the end of the zucchini, just happened to pick my gift out of all the gifts in the middle of the pile! You should have heard the roar of laughter that came as each present was unwrapped! I made her save the daikon radish for last (it is way longer than zucchini and carrots.....HUGE).  Everyone was in stitches, tears rolling down our cheeks. And my boss was the one laughing the loudest! Hysterical!



My husband gets so tired of me coming home and talking about work. Maybe it would be good to just blog about it instead of sharing it with him. He can't figure out why, if work was so hard, that I come home and re-live it by talking about it. But, I think it's like venting, or spilling poison from a wound by letting it out so it doesn't accumulate under my skin or in my head or vital organs or something (yeah, he should share some of the fun I have at work don't you think?) I could work myself into an ulcer with all the stuff I see. Hell, I don't know if I don't have one already. Just adds to my ever growing physical complaints. And it's not just GETTING OLD that does this stuff!



I did manage to get that cup of coffee, which isn't smart in the "can't take a break to pee" department. The day hardly ever drags on as a nurse. My poor family tries to call me at work and are always rushed off the phone.



I guess I'll put the flag down now and call it a done deal. Until the next race!











Thursday, October 2, 2008

The End


Done! Done done done!  I am done with the 4th book. 

My husband will be able to talk to me in the car. Go to bed at a descent hour! Not have a Zombie for a wife!

Now, I must start on the book "Wicked"!  

What a great October this will be.  To begin and end the Halloween season reading about vampires, werewolves and witches! 


My Imagination is Better

I'm almost done with the 4th book of the Twilight series, Breaking Dawn, so I felt like the characters are pretty much cemented in my mind enough that and I could stand to venture out and see who they chose to play the parts in the upcoming movie.


I went online to look at who was chosen for the cast and I am mostly happy.  But the choice for Carlisle and Esme are all wrong to me in that these are supposed to be the "leaders" or "parent figures" of the Cullen family and they look as much like high school teenagers as the rest of the characters.  I don't believe the town of Forks would believe that Carlisle is the brilliant doctor he's supposed to be if he looks like he just got out of high school.  And his wife Esme looks like she could be either Alice or Rosalie's sister, so the respect of "age" doesn't come into play for me.  


I'm seriously thinking I'll forgo the movie all together and keep my own images in my mind.


Oh, also, I REALLY can't see their choice in Jacob Black.  The guy they chose looks way too young to me, even though he is supposed to be younger than Bella in the book.  I can't see how they'd be able to morph him into the HUGE version of Jake who is this garganchuan monster in the other books.  He looks smaller than Edward and I just can't picture that. 


The choice for Edward isn't exactly who I had in mind either, but he'll do.  I pictured Edward to have slightly darker hair and to have a elegance and grace about him that can only come with time and experience as a vampire of his "age". We'll see if the Harry Potter star pulls his weight for me.  (or maybe we won't. Again, I just don't know if I'll see the movie).


 I don't know about the acting skills of the girl they chose for Bella, but she looks just as I pictured her in my mind while reading the book.  She has a "pretty tom-boyishness" about her and the girl they chose is just that.  

Well, back to reading the book.